This month, the British oil company BP issued a controversial report on the cause of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico four months ago.
9月8号，BP英国石油公司就4个月前墨西哥湾漏油事故原因，发表了一份引起争议的报告。
Regardless of who was at fault, the release of an estimated four million barrels of oil had a major environmental impact. But there has been relatively little scientific study of the long-term human health effect of this kind of event.
不论错在何方，这次估计高达400万桶的原油泄漏，已经对环境造成了巨大的影响。但是，针对这次事故对人类健康的长远影响，这方面的的科学研究还很少。
In a world dependent on petroleum fuels, oil spills seem inevitable. However, Gina Solomon of the University of California San Francisco Medical School says the medical consequences don't get sufficient attention from scientists.
在这个依赖石油燃料的世界上，漏油事故在所难免。但是加州大学旧金山分校的吉娜·所罗门指出，科学家们没有对这类事件对人类健康的影响，给予足够的关注。
"Of the 35 or so major oil spills that have occurred in recent decades," says Solomon, "there's only some health study from eight of those spills, and most of those are just contemporaneous study."
她说：“最近几十年来发生的过大约35次重大的漏油事故，科学家们只在8次事故发生后做过一些对人类健康影响的研究，而且大部分都只是应时性的研究。”
Meaning there was no long-term study of the health effects.
换句话说，就是没有做过对人类健康影响的长期研究。
One exception was a 2002 spill off the coast of Spain, where scientists documented DNA damage among volunteers doing cleanup along the beach.
只有一次例外，那是2002年发生在西班牙海岸的漏油事件。科学家们为海滩上做清除工作的志愿人员记录了DNA受损情况。
Crude oil is full of toxic materials, and when oil from a leaking underwater well hits the surface, many of those materials can enter the air near where cleanup workers are breathing.
原油里充满有毒物质，当它由海底油井泄漏出来，浮上水面时，许多有毒物质会污染清理工人周围的空气。
"The chemicals that evaporate off of the oil are quite toxic," says Solomon. "These are what are called volatile organic compounds that include cancer-causing chemicals like benzine, and chemicals that are linked to neurological effects, such as toluene."
所罗门说：“从原油中挥发出来的化学成分毒性很强。这就是我们所说的‘挥发性有机化合物’，例如致癌的‘轻油精’以及影响神经系统‘甲苯’。”
Other chemicals enter the food chain - eaten by fish and seafood harvested for human consumption, but also consumed by smaller sea creatures that are more distant links in the human food chain.
还有些化学成分进入食物链，波及最后被人摆上餐桌的鱼类及其它水产品。
Other threats from the Gulf oil spill include particulate matter generated by burning oil floating on the surface and from the large amount of chemical dispersants used.
海湾漏油造成的其它隐患，还包括飘浮在水面的石油在燃烧时以及大量化学融解剂所产生的微粒。
Solomon says the BP spill was very disruptive to all three legs of the gulf economy - the oil business, tourism, and fishing - and it came as the region was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina five years ago. So the impact on emotional or psychological health is likely to be significant.
所罗门说，BP公司这次的漏油事故严重破坏了海湾地区经济的三大支柱--石油工业、观光业以及渔业。而且，漏油事故发生在这个地区还没有从5年前的卡特里纳风灾中完全恢复过来的时候，因此，可能还会对当地人民的情感和心理带来严重影响。
"One of the health effects that was studied after the Exxon Valdez disaster was psychological effects, and there were severe effects that were found even years later in the communities in Alaska affected by that oil spill," says Solomon. "So I think we can expect the same on the Gulf Coast."
“埃克森瓦尔迪兹号油轮20年前在阿拉斯加海面发生溢油事故后，心理影响是科学家研究那次事故对人类健康的影响的一个方面。研究发现，几年之后，严重的心理影响还存在于阿拉斯加相关社区里。所以我认为，同样的情况也会出现在海湾地区。”
The U.S. National Institutes of Health is funding studies of the effects of the Gulf oil spill. Writing in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, Gina Solomon says that, in the meantime, doctors and nurses in the area should be alert to the possibility that patients might be experiencing symptoms related to the oil spill.
美国国家卫生研究院正在资助对海湾漏油事件影响的研究。吉娜·所罗门在为美国医药协会会刊撰写的报告中说，这个地区的医护人员应该对病人可能出现的与漏油事故有关的症状，保持警觉。 |